Monday, 1 August 2011

Magnetising My Land Speeder - Tutorial

Good evening children of the Plague Father I am pleased to once again welcome you to his domain, tonight my offering is my first attempt at magnetising a Land Speeder. After looking around the internet there is a lot of different views and opinions on how to do this ( and I am not above using other peoples experience to avoid ruining my own models ) which varies by each individuals personal approach.

Now as good as so many of these are I did find that the lack of detail did get a bit annoying, I know some things you can assume but when you haven't done it before I find I want to be 100% sure and not making assumptions. I found it would jump from here is a pile of plastic and magnets, one or two quick steps and there you go the finished product. What I am going to try and do is provide a little bit more in depth guide ( yes it will be a long post sorry ) as I found it took a little bit more time than I was expecting.

Firstly I glued the seats and the central pillars in place so I was able to dry assemble the rest as it was needed, allowing me to make sure everything fit while I was working from a rough idea of how I was actually going to make this work.

I decided to tackle the Typhoon missile launchers first as with my Templars I imagine it will get the most use due to being cheap ranged fire power. I took a lot of my inspiration from †Talonstrike† ( which sadly seems to have stopped posting ) and started by building up the inside of the wall with plasticard. I used 5x1mm magnets so I only had to use 2 filler pieces and then the back piece, I tried with one but it bowed worrying me that one day it would ping off inside the model. When building this part up try and keep on the columns as I ended up having to trim the plasticard at the bottom & sides when I assembled it due to catching on the grooves it slots into.

Next up I assembled the missile launcher and the door before adding a 5x1mm magnet and then trimming the part that looks like a support beam with a pipe on it ( the part that slots through the hole of the door if my "amazing" description lacked clarity ) to be flush with the magnet so the door could sit flat when in place.

So that I could line the inside magnet up with the outer I blue tacked the missile pod in place before adding glue to the plasticard and letting the magnet align itself by dropping it and relying on its mysterious powers ( being careful to keep my fingers off the glue and out of the way of the free falling magnet )

On the inside I cut a piece of plastic card to fit over the supports I had made. It was easy enough to see where the magnet should sit and where to add the glue to let it fall into place, it actually worked better than I was expecting though I do plan to cover the inside magnets with green stuff just to be safe.

To match up the alternative door I waited until the glue was dry and dropped the magnet on the other side, marked it up to get the polarity right and glued it in place, I used the missile door to line it as they are similar but not identical annoyingly so wanted to be safe.

Pleased with my efforts I then moved on to adding the Assault Cannon / Heavy Flamer options. The first step was to drill a hole in the base of the model. I chose this spot as it was between the lines and let me line up with the grooves for the gun mount. My magnet of choice this time was a 3x1mm which while the magnet seems small the drill bit seems bigger than I would like to use on such a thin bit of plastic ( I actually made a little hole which I filled with green stuff from the other side trying to get it snug ).

The Bottom part here is the weapon mount which needs to be magnetised on both sides, one to attach to the bottom of the ship and one to attach to the guns. I could have glued this in place and saved two magnets but then it would always be on the model though it is fairly small without a gun attached. This was fairly easy to do by centring the magnets however this did lose me the use of the light which is suppose to go on one side ( looking back if I had been careful I could have cut away at one edge to fit the magnet for the gun on and had the light as a permanent feature ).

Drilling in to the top of the assault cannon was a breeze however the flamer is hollow so be very careful you don't drill too far down or you have to build the inside up so you don't lose your magnet. On a side note neither of these came with the barrels predrilled and would recommend no more than a 0.5mm for the assault cannons rotary barrels as the two closest to the extended section are slightly narrower and a 1mm could ruin it.

I think the missile doors shut flush especially considering that it isn't all nicely glued in place yet and the extra distance from the hull the weapon mount gives was worth making sure I added it over magnetising directly to the hull.

Now I know you will all be asking yourself "O'Shashar you traitorous T'au dog what about the Multi Melta / Heavy Bolter?" and this is a good question. At this point I haven't decided yet if I am going to use spare parts to make a second gunner and just swap them out at the torso or use one guy, I would love to hear your experiences with this and which gives a better result.

Currently I am leaning towards torso swapping as I do not put the marines sticking out of my Rhinos as they just don't look like they fit out the hatch properly so have spares. Though it would mean sacrificing another two BT shoulder pads to try and keep the feel of the army as Templars not just black marines ( considering the only icons on the ship are two crosses sides behind the missile doors in place of the included icons which do not include any for Templars).

Over all I do like this model even though it is smaller than I was expecting, I was expecting more piranha sized ships. The Aquila on the front is part of the cast which was a little disappointing as I hadn't planned to use it ( I would have cut it off but with the model being smaller the sword from the upgrade box looked out of place ). It has been a good learning experience for me and I hope that my guide helps at least one person and any feedback on this would be appreciated.

Until next time drink deep from the cauldron and spread his blessings to all you encounter.